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By Root 2069 0

Lieutenant Rochas and Captain Beaudoin. Although the conquerors had abolished ranks and decided that prisoners only had to obey German officers, the four of them had still clung to Jean, knowing how sensible and experienced he was and good to follow in difficult circumstances. So that morning harmony and good humour reigned despite the foolishness of some and the bloody-mindedness of others. To begin with, he had found them a fairly dry spot for the night, between two ditches, where they had stretched themselves out, having only one piece of canvas between them. Then he had just got hold of some wood and a pan, in which Loubet had made them some nice hot coffee that cheered them up. It had stopped raining, and the day bade fair to be superb, they still had some biscuit and bacon left, and besides, as Chouteau remarked, it was a pleasure not to have to obey anyone any more but mess about as you liked. They were shut up, no doubt, but there was plenty of room. In any case they would be off in a day or two. So altogether this first day, Sunday the 4th, passed very happily.

Even Maurice, feeling better now he had rejoined his companions, found nothing much to grumble about except the German bands which played all through the afternoon on the opposite side of the canal. And towards evening there was hymn-singing as well. Beyond the cordon of sentries little groups of soldiers could be seen singing slow and loud to celebrate the Sabbath.

‘Oh that music!’ Maurice almost screamed in exasperation. ‘It’s getting under my skin!’

Jean, more phlegmatic, just shrugged.

‘After all, they’ve got their reasons for being pleased. And perhaps they think they’re entertaining us… It hasn’t been a bad day, we mustn’t grumble.’

But towards dusk it began raining again. That was disastrous. Some soldiers had broken into the few empty houses on the peninsula and a few others had managed to put up tents. But the majority had no protection of any kind, not even a blanket, and had to spend the night in the open with rain pouring down on them.

At about one in the morning Maurice, who had dozed off exhausted, woke up in an absolute lake. The ditches, swollen by the rain, had overflowed and submerged the ground on which he was lying. Chouteau and Loubet were swearing with rage and Pache was shaking Lapoulle who was sleeping on like a log, lake or no lake. Then Jean remembered the poplars along the canal and ran to take shelter under them with his men, who spent the rest of that fearful night bent nearly double with their backs against the tree trunks and legs bent up under them to avoid the heaviest of the drips.

The following day and the one after that were really dreadful, with such frequent and heavy showers that their clothes never had time to dry on their bodies. Famine was setting in, with no biscuit, bacon or .coffee left. During these two days, the Monday and the Tuesday, they lived on potatoes stolen from fields near-by, and even these were becoming so scarce by the end of the second day that the soldiers with any money were buying them at five sous each. True, bugles still sounded rations, and the corporal had even hurried off to a big shed at La Tour à Glaire, where it was rumoured that rations of bread were being issued. But the first time he went he had waited there for three hours to no purpose, and the second he had had a row with a Bavarian. If the French officers could do nothing, being powerless to act, had the German headquarters parked the beaten army in the rain with the idea of letting them die of hunger? It didn’t look as though any precaution had been taken or any effort made to feed the eighty thousand men whose death-agony was beginning in this horrible hell the soldiers were beginning to call the Camp of Hell, a name denoting anguish that would haunt even the bravest for ever.

When he got back from these long fruitless waits in front of the shed, Jean, usually so phlegmatic, lost his temper.

‘Are they just pulling our legs, calling when there’s nothing there? Bugger me if I put myself out any more!’

Yet at the first